Afghanistan - History

Afghanistan has existed as a distinct polity for less than three
centuries. Previously, the area was made up of various principalities,
usually hostile to each other and occasionally ruled by one or another
conqueror from Persia and the area to the west or from central Asia to
the north, usually on his way to India. These included the Persian
Darius I in the 6th century
BC
, and 300 years later, Alexander the Great. As the power of his Seleucid
successors waned, an independent Greek kingdom of Bactria arose with its
capital at Balkh west of Mazar-i-Sharif, but after about a century it
fell to invading tribes (notably the Sakas, who gave their name to
Sakastan, or Sistan). Toward the middle of the 3rd century
BC
, Buddhism spread to Afghanistan from India, and for centuries prior to
the beginning of the 9th century
AD
, at least half the population of eastern Afghanistan was Buddhist.

Beginning in the 7th century, Muslim invaders brought Islam to the
region, and it eventually became the dominant cultural influence. For
almost 200 years, Ghazni was the capital of a powerful Islamic kingdom,
the greatest of whose rulers, Mahmud of Ghazni (r.997-1030), conquered
most of the area from the Caspian to the Ganges. The Ghaznavids were
displaced by the Seljuk Turks, who mastered Persia and Anatolia (eastern
Turkey), and by the Ghorids, who, rising from Ghor, southeast of Herat,
established an empire stretching from Herat to Ajmir in India. They were
displaced in turn by the Turko-Persian rulers of the Khiva oasis in
Transoxiana, who, by 1217, had created a state that included the whole
of Afghanistan until it disintegrated under attack by Genghis Khan in
1219. His grandson Timur, also called "Timur the Lame" or
Tamerlane, occupied all of what is now Afghanistan from 1365 to 1384,
establishing a court of intellectual and artistic brilliance at Herat.
The Timurids came under challenge from the Uzbeks, who finally drove the
them out of Herat in 1507. The great Babur, one of the Uzbek princes,
occupied Kabul in 1504 and Delhi in 1526, establishing the Mughal Empire
in which eastern Afghanistan was ruled from Delhi, Agra, Lahore, or
Srinagar, while Herat and Sistan were governed as provinces of Persia.

In the 18th century, Persians under Nadir Shah conquered the area, and
after his death in 1747, one of his military commanders, Ahmad Shah
Abdali, was elected emir of Afghanistan. The formation of a unified
Afghanistan under his emirate marks Afghanistan's beginning as a
political entity. Among his descendants was Dost Muhammad who
established himself in Kabul in 1826 and gained the emirate in 1835.
Although the British defeated Dost in the first Afghan War (1838-42),
they restored him to power, but his attempts and those of his successors
to play off Czarist Russian interests against the British concerns about
the security of their Indian Empire led to more conflict. In the second
Afghan War (1877–79), the forces of Sher Ali, Dost's son,
were defeated by the British, and his entire party, ousted. Abdur Rahman
Khan, recognized as emir by the British in 1880, established a central
administration, and supported the British interest in a neutral
Afghanistan as a buffer against the expansion of Russian influence.

Intermittent fighting between the British and Pushtun tribes from
eastern Afghanistan continued even after the establishment, in 1893, of
a boundary (the Durand line) between Afghanistan and British India. An
Anglo-Russian agreement concluded in 1907 guaranteed the independence of
Afghanistan (and Tibet) under British influence, and Afghanistan
remained neutral in both World Wars. Afghan forces under Amanullah Khan,
who had become emir in 1919, briefly intruded across the Durand Line in
1919. At the end of brief fighting—the third Afghan
War—the Treaty of Rawalpindi (1919) accorded the government of
Afghanistan the freedom to conduct its own foreign affairs.

Internally, Amanullah's Westernization program was strongly
opposed, forcing him to abdicate in 1929. After a brief civil war, a
tribal assembly chose Muhammad Nadir Shah as king. In his brief four
years in power, he restored peace while continuing Amanullah's
modernization efforts at a more moderate pace. Assassinated in 1933, he
was succeeded by his son, Muhammad Zahir Shah, who continued his
modernization efforts, governing for 40 years, even though sharing
effective power with his uncles and a first cousin, who served as his
prime ministers.

In the 1960s, there was considerable tension between Pakistan and
Afghanistan as a result of Afghanistan's effort to assert
influence among, and ultimately responsibility for, Pushtu-speaking
Pathan tribes living on both sides of the Durand Line under a policy
calling for the establishment of an entity to be called
"Pushtunistan." The border was closed several times during
the following years, and relations with Pakistan remained generally poor
until 1977.

In 1964, a new constitution was introduced, converting Afghanistan into
a constitutional monarchy, and a year later the country's first
general election was held. In July 1973, Muhammad Daoud Khan, the
king's first cousin and brother-in-law, who had served as prime
minister from 1953 until early 1963, seized power in a near-bloodless
coup, establishing a republic and appointing himself president, and
prime minister of the Republic of Afghanistan. He exiled Zahir Shah and
his immediate family, abolished the monarchy, dissolved the legislature,
and suspended the constitution. Daoud ruled as a dictator until 1977,
when a republican constitution calling for a one-party state was adopted
by the newly convened Loya Jirga (Grand National Assembly), which then
elected Daoud president for a six-year term.

Afghanistan Under Communist Rule

On 27 April 1978, Daoud was deposed and executed in a bloody coup (the
"Saur Revolution" because it took place during the Afghan
month of Saur), and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan emerged.
Heading the new Revolutionary Council was Nur Muhammad Taraki,
secretary-general of the communist People's Democratic Party of
Afghanistan (PDPA), assisted by Babrak Karmal and Hafizullah Amin, both
named deputy prime ministers. The former Soviet Union immediately
established ties with the new regime, and in December 1978, the two
nations concluded a treaty of friendship and cooperation. Soon after the
coup, rural Afghan groups took up arms against the regime, which
increasingly relied on Soviet arms for support against what came to be
known as mujahidin, or holy warriors.

Meanwhile, the Khalq (masses) and Parcham (flag) factions of the PDPA,
which had united for the April takeover, became embroiled in a bitter
power struggle within the party and the government. In September 1979,
Taraki was ousted and executed by Amin, who had beat out Karmal to
become prime minister the previous March and who now assumed
Taraki's posts as president and party leader. Amin was himself
replaced on 27 December by Karmal, the Parcham faction leader. This last
change was announced not by Radio Kabul but by Radio Moscow and was
preceded by the airlift of 4,000 to 5,000 Soviet troops into Kabul on
25–26 December, purportedly at the request of an Afghan
government whose president, Hafizullah Amin, was killed during the
takeover.

The Soviet presence increased to about 85,000 troops in late January
1980, and by spring, the first clashes between Soviet troops and the
mujahidin had occurred. Throughout the early and mid-1980s, the
mujahidin resistance continue to build, aided by Afghan army deserters
and arms from the United States, Pakistan, and the nations of the
Islamic Conference Organization (ICO). Much of the countryside remained
under mujahidin control as the insurgency waged on year by year, while
in Kabul, Soviet advisers assumed control of most Afghan government
agencies.

By late 1987, more than a million Afghans had lost their lives in the
struggle, while the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)
estimated that some 5 million others had sought refuge in Pakistan,
Iran, and elsewhere. Soviet sources at the time acknowledged Soviet
losses of between 12,000 and 30,000 dead and 76,000 wounded. Soviet
troop strength in Afghanistan at the end of 1987 was about 120,000,
while according to Western sources, Afghan resistance forces numbered
nearly 130,000.

In early 1987, Babrak Karmal fled to Moscow after being replaced as the
head of the PDPA in May 1986 by Najibullah, former head of the Afghan
secret police. Najibullah offered the mujahidin a ceasefire and
introduced a much publicized national reconciliation policy; he also
released some political prisoners, offered to deal with the resistance
leaders, and promised new land reform. The mujahidin rejected these
overtures, declining to negotiate for anything short of Soviet
withdrawal and Najibullah's removal.

International efforts to bring about a political solution to the
war—including nearly unanimous General Assembly condemnations of
the Soviet presence in Afghanistan—were pursued within the UN
framework from 1982 onward. Among these efforts were "proximity
talks" between Afghanistan and Pakistan conducted by a Special
Representative of the UN Secretary General, Under Secretary-General
Diego Cordovez. After a desultory beginning, these talks began to look
promising in late 1987 and early 1988 when Soviet policymakers
repeatedly stated, in a major policy shift, that the removal of Soviet
troops from Afghanistan was not contingent on the creation of a
transitional regime acceptable to the former USSR. On 14 April 1988,
documents were signed and exchanged in which the USSR agreed to pull its
troops out of Afghanistan within nine months, the US reserved the right
to continue military aid to Afghan guerrillas as long as the USSR
continued to aid the government in Kabul, and Pakistan and Afghanistan
pledged not to interfere in each other's internal affairs.

The Russians completed the evacuation of their forces on schedule 15
February 1989, but in spite of continuing pressure by the well-armed
mujahidin, the Najibullah government remained in power until April 1992,
when Najibullah sought refuge at the UN office in Kabul as mujahidin
forces closed in on the city.

Afghanistan After the Soviet Withdrawal

With the fall of the Najibullah government, the Seven-Party Alliance
(SPA) of the Islamic groups based in Pakistan moved to consolidate its
"victory" by announcing plans to set up an Interim Afghan
Government (AIG) charged with preparing the way for elections.
Meanwhile, they moved to assert their control of Afghanistan, but their
efforts to establish the AIG in Kabul failed when within ten days of
Najibullah's departure from office, well-armed forces of the
Hizb-i-Islami and Jamiat-i-Islami—two of the seven SPA
parties—clashed in fighting for the control of the capital. In
July, Jamiat leader Burhanuddin Rabbani replaced Sibghatullah Mojaddedi
as president of the AIG, as previously agreed by all the SPA parties but
the Hizb-i-Islami.

Continued fighting between Jamiat and Hizb-i-Islami militias halted
further progress, and Rabbani's forces, under Commander Ahmad
Shah Masoud, dug in to block those under the control of interim
"Prime Minister" Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's
Hizb-i-Islami and his ally, General Rashid Dostum (a former PDPA militia
leader turned warlord from northern Afghanistan), from taking control of
Kabul. In a 24-hour rocket exchange in August 1992 in Kabul, an
estimated 3000 Afghans died, and before the end of the year, upwards of
700,000 Afghans had fled the city. Deep differences among the SPA/AIG
leadership, embittered by decades of bad blood, ethnic distrust, and
personal enmity, prevented any further progress toward creating a
genuine interim government capable of honoring the 1992 SPA pledge to
write a constitution, organize elections, and create a new Afghan
polity. Despite UN attempts to broker a peace and bring the warring
groups into a coalition government, Afghanistan remained at war.

Rise of the Taliban

By the summer of 1994 Rabbani and his defense minister, Ahmed Shah
Masoud, were in control of the government in Kabul, but internal turmoil
caused by the warring factions had brought the economy to a standstill.
It was reported that on the road north of Kandahar a convoy owned by
influential Pakistani businessmen was stopped by bandits demanding
money. The businessmen appealed to the Pakistani government, which
responded by encouraging Afghan students from the fundamentalist
religious schools on the Pakistan-Afghan boarder to intervene. The
students freed the convoy and went on to capture Kandahar,
Afghanistan's second-largest city. Pakistan's leaders
supported the Taliban with ammunition, fuel, and food. The students,
ultra-fundamentalist Sunni Muslims who called themselves the Taliban
(the Arabic word for religious students, literally "the
Seekers") shared Pashtun ancestry with their Pakistani neighbors
to the south. The Taliban also found widespread support among Afghan
Pashtuns hostile to local warlords and tired of war and economic
instability. By late 1996, the Taliban had captured Kabul, the capital,
and were in control of 21 of Afghanistan's 32 provinces. When
Rabbani fled the capital, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia officially
recognized the Taliban government in Kabul. In areas under Taliban
control, order was restored, roads opened, and trade resumed. However,
the Taliban's reactionary social practices, justified as being
Islamic, did not appeal to Afghanistan's non-Pashtun minorities
in the north and west of the country, nor to the educated population
generally. The opposition, dominated by the Uzbek, Tajik, Hazara, and
Turkoman ethnic groups, retreated to the northeastern provinces.

In May 1997 the Taliban entered Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan's
largest town north of the Hindu Kush and stronghold of Uzbek warlord
Rashid Dostum. In the political intrigue that followed, Dostum was
ousted by his second in command, Malik Pahlawan, who initially supported
the Taliban. Dostum reportedly fled to Turkey. Once the Taliban were in
the city, however, Pahlawan abruptly switched sides. In the subsequent
fighting, the Taliban were forced to retreat with heavy casualties. The
forces of Ahmad Shah Masoud, Tajik warlord and former defense minister
in ousted President Rabbani's government, were also instrumental
in the defeat of the Taliban in Mazar. Masoud controlled the high passes
of the Panjshir Valley in the east of the country. The opposition
alliance was supported by Iran, Russia, and the Central Asian republics,
who feared that the Taliban might destabilize the region.

By early 1998, the Taliban militia controlled about two-thirds of
Afghanistan. Opposition forces under Ahmad Shah Masoud controlled the
northeast of the country. Taliban forces mounted another offensive
against their opponents in August-September 1998 and nearly sparked a
war with neighboring Iran after a series of Shiite villages were
pillaged and Iranian diplomats killed. Iran, which supplied
Masoud's forces, countered by massing troops along its border
with Afghanistan. Although the crisis subsided, tensions between the
Taliban and Iran remained high. Masoud's opposition forces became
known as the United Front or Northern Alliance in late 1999.

Despite attempts to broker a peace settlement, fighting between the
Taliban and opposition factions continued through 1999 and into 2000
with the Taliban controlling 90% of the country. In March 1999, the
warring factions agreed to enter a coalition government, but by July
these UN-sponsored peace talks broke down and the Taliban renewed its
offensive against opposition forces. By October, the Taliban captured
the key northern city of Taloqan and a series of northeastern towns,
advancing to the border with Tajikistan. Fighting between the Taliban
and Northern Alliance forces was fierce in early 2001.

In April 2001, Masoud stated that he did not rule out a peace dialogue
with the Taliban, or even of setting up a provisional government jointly
with the Taliban, but that Pakistan would have to stop interfering in
the conflict first. He stated that elections would have to be held under
the aegis of the UN and the "six plus two" countries,
including Iran, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, as well as
Russia and the US. The Northern Alliance was receiving financial and
military assistance from its old enemy Russia as well as from Iran. In
addition to Pakistan, the Taliban was recognized as the legitimate
government of Afghanistan by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Masoud was assassinated on 9 September 2001, by two men claiming to be
Moroccan journalists. His killers are thought to have been agents of
al-Qaeda acting in concert with the plotters of the 11 September 2001
attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in
Washington, D.C.

Post-11 September 2001

The 11 September 2001 attacks carried out against the US by members of
al-Qaeda marked the beginning of a war on terrorism first directed
against the Taliban for harboring Osama bin Laden and his forces. On 7
October 2001, US-led forces launched the bombing campaign Operation
Enduring Freedom against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. On 13
November the Taliban were removed from power in Kabul, and an interim
government under the leadership of Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun leader from
Kandahar, was installed on 22 December. The campaign continued, however,
into 2002. In June 2002, a Loya Jirga, or Grand Assembly of traditional
leaders, was held, and Karzai was elected head of state of a
transitional government that would be in place for 18 months until
elections could be held. More than 60% of the cabinet posts in the
government went to Ahmed Shah Masoud's Northern Alliance. Masoud
was officially proclaimed the national hero of Afghanistan on 25 April
2002. A special committee collected signatures to award the Nobel Prize
to Masoud posthumously. Among those who signed the petition were Czech
President Vaclav Havel, American writer Elie Wiesel, and deputies of the
European Parliament. On 5 September 2002, Karzai survived an
assassination attempt, and another plot against him was thwarted on 22
November. As of April 2003, more than 10,000 coalition forces, led by
8,000 US troops, were engaged in fighting remnants of the Taliban,
al-Qaeda forces, and former mujahidin commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, in
the eastern and southern regions of Afghanistan.